Coming Forward

By Victor Anthony

I have been writing poetry for most of my life and like Emily Dickinson, I have never published my poems which were written or typed either on full pages or on scraps that scattered themselves about in disarray. It is an impulse that comes when I have a pen in hand and a blank paper. I have never submitted but I have recited in clubs, though briefly. I also had the fortune to have participated in one of Carl Watsons poetry classes, in which he praised us for being his best participants he had yet encountered. Nothing more came of that.

So it was late in life that I finally gathered together my poems and went over them, rewrote some, started new ones and began arranging them. My first poem written in high school had been destroyed but I had memorized the first two stanzas and was able to reconstruct the last. Likewise one of my poems that I has recited in the clubs and that was well received was also lost, unfortunately irretrievable. Fortunately, these were my only real losses for being so horribly untidy.

Among my influences, my first was Poe, later there were Whitman, Frost, and ee cummings. My passion for jazz likewise played some influence. In the process of reviewing my poetry, I saw the changing, evolving patterns in my writing as a reflection of my own changing evolving life and my inner feelings, and in that process I analyzed that past life. I had always considered myself as being shy and reserved when I was young but in my analyzing process, I came to realize that I was actually quite repressed and it was only gradually that I grew out of that shell, the poetry I wrote along the way being part of the help for myself. My poetry changed over time, due to my changing inner mind and spirit and to my expanding experience. These poems then are a record of my being as much as anything

I am a Sagittarius and true to that sign I love variety. Within these pages you will find that variety and I hope that among them you will find some enjoyment. These are my poems. This is my life and mind. Enjoy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493167319

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Victor Anthony.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2014901455

ISBN:          Hardcover          978-1-4931-6730-2

                   Softcover            978-1-4931-6729-6

                   eBook                  978-1-4931-6731-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 01/25/2014

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Contents

Preface

My Gift

First Poem

Ballad

My Heart’s In The Mountains

The Vacant Room

I Was Burglarized Of My Childhood

Onelyness

Blue Funk

Subway Cars

Cast

Raga

The Winter Wind

Cardinal In Winter

End Time For The Terrible Winter

Thaw

Metaphors To The Sun

Springshine

The Moods Of April

Clouds

October

Birds

Swallows

Coming Forward

L A A Z Y Weather

Trees In The Wind

Ascension Day

O Eden

Tetrametric Sonnet

Free Sails

Now Come Love

Wind Weavers

Barely Dawn

Back Yard (Written 1971 During The Vietnam War)

On The Late Air Crash (May 1979)

The Beautiful People

Lean Times

The Vast Lake

Between

Wait

Laudation To The Coffee Bean

Her Mouth

Anti-Cupid

Jazzis

Concert At Blondie’s

Swingtime Is Wingtime

Non-Vintage Vintage

Orchestra

Abbot And Costello

Time Is

Nice

Magritte And Helios

Bodh

After Viewing Russian Avantgarde Art

Time Flies

Beat

Gentle

Haikus

Dusk

Good Friday

Boats

Three Haikus

Oxymorons

Blue And White

Colors Of A Woman

All Flesh Is Grass

Mind And Maybe

More Haikus

The Dot

Guilty

Thieves

The Cruel Man

A Suicide And A Goddess

Different Strokes

Sacred Clay

To I.

September 17, 1983

Brief Fire

Your Eyes

Cipher Decipher

I Will Eat Your Flesh

The Magic Trick

To Diane

To Diane

Along The Strand

Song

Storm Love

Undulating Thoughts

Roses

Deep Winter

Freezing Journey

Pregnant

Xmas

Reflecting On America (235Th Birthday)

Fall

After Bethlehem

The Flood

Where Is The Future?

Peter Pan Approaching Eighty

The Ink Of Poets

Dedicated to Carl Watson

Poet and teacher

PREFACE

I have been writing poetry for most of my life and like Emily Dickinson, I have never published my poems which were written or typed either on full pages or on scraps that scattered themselves about in disarray. It is an impulse that comes when I have a pen in hand and a blank paper. I have never submitted but I have recited in clubs, though briefly. I also had the fortune to have participated in one of Carl Watson’s poetry classes, in which he